I'm married to an older women, but now I have met my soul mate

[John100]

I'm 48, my wife is 60. For years now we have not had much of a relationship. We do very little together, and when we do stuff together (family functions) we argue all the whole time. For years our marriage has been both loveless and sexless. I think it's about 6 years since we last had sex. We do not make each other happy.

We don't have any children together, my wife has a son from a previous marriage.

About 18 months ago I met my soul mates. We make each other happy and she has made me realise how unhappy I have been for years. It's the lack of love and support that I have missed the most. I have been with my wife for over 20 years and I had never cheated on her.

My soulmate has now said that she cannot continue to see me while I am married. I do not know what to do! I don't want to lose her but I feel guilty about leaving my wife, I don't want to hurt her.

I keep thinking I should stand by my marriage vows, but is there any point when we make each other miserable. I think because she is older, nearly 61, it makes me feel even worse.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

[melancholia]

Why did you even marry your current wife? Get a divorce if you want to pursue this other woman, but keep in mind that even though the idea of a new relationship with someone else may sound like the right idea, it may not necessarily turn out to be great. I think you should focus your energy on bettering your own life, whether that means working on fixing your marriage, or working on pursuing a divorce; but clearly you have been avoiding taking care of yourself; and you've been neglecting your own needs for quite some time. You need to figure out how to improve your own life before you start flitting off with another woman.

[Kates David]

To the contrary, I believe that a positive/empathetic relationship is adequate enough to support one in the right direction. It can be much easier to find oneself, and to sort oneself, when not living in an emotional vacuum. Obviously, romance is generally at odds with a clear head, but you said, "soul mates" Hopefully, the romance would be put on hold. Is the age gap a measure for the difference in your real ages, or, perhaps she is biologically the younger? I`m picking up physical world records in my sixties, and even have a better looking body than the vast majority of twenty five year olds, for instance.
If your wife is "normal" she wont be happy in the relationship either, and therefore may even thank you eventually. Initially she`s liable to fall a very long way. It`ll likely make her feel totally worthless, and hopelessly old, the two together. Hopefully she`s not suicidal.
NB It is easy to perceive that one has sorted out their minds/their inter-relational thinking, but it is often only whilst being tested by a relationship that one can actually make the real world right adjustments.

[breathe123]

Don't want to hurt her? Isn't cheating on her, physically or emotionally being you hurting her? It still counts as you hurting her even if you think she is unaware of it.

~ I agree with melancholia & ask for a divorce & then you don't have to lie & sneak around. Maybe your wife isn't happy with you anymore as well, so both will be happier overall by going different ways.

[Kates David]

You are with somebody because the relationship works, not because it does n`t work. Often for the sake of the children it is better to split up.

[TheEvilJester]

Look, the most important fact of the matter is that, no matter what the case may be with anybody else.... your marriage obviously does not work. You said you have not been happy together for 6 years. You said you've known this new gal for 18 months. That's a year and a half. That means you were with your wife for four and a half years completely unhappy and miserable before you even thought of the possibility of being with somebody else.

So, honestly, regardless of this other woman, my advice would be to end the marriage. Why in the world would you stay together? You deserve to be happy. Your wife deserves a chance to be happy as well. Why stay together when you only make each other miserable? So, your decision really should have about 0.00% to do with this other woman. It should more be for YOU, because you deserve to be happy.

Take it from somebody who learned the hard way.... you would be SO much happier even if you were completely alone than you are trapped in a relationship that only strangles your happiness rather than making you happy. So, end things because it is the right thing to do, not because you want to maybe pursue a relationship with this other woman...

Now, if you had asked us this BEFORE you started something with this other woman, my advice would have been to take some time to yourself, and to heal. Unfortunately, if you want to keep this new woman, it is a little too late to completely have some alone time. She's hit the moment where she no longer wants to wait.

For now, my advice would be to make it clear to her that you DO want to be together, but that you also want her to understand you are going through a lot. Whether it is alone or while with her, you need time to process what went wrong with your marriage. What did you do wrong that maybe you could have done better? What did your wife do wrong that maybe she could have done better? What were some things that came between you that maybe were just differences between the two of you?

You need to learn things like that so you can grow and avoid just making the same mistakes in a new relationship, or just winding up with somebody who makes the same mistakes. I can certainly understand why this new woman has started to have second thoughts. She obviously wants somebody she can have to herself, and no matter how much she may think she can trust you, there is still the doubt because you are married to somebody else. There ARE unscrupulous guys who use women and just drag them along indefinitely. You may not be that kind of guy, but how is she supposed to know that?

Again, though, it is more for YOU then anything that you need to end this unhappy marriage. Good luck to you. What you have to go through is not easy, I know... but it IS worth it. I wish you the best.

[Kates David]

There ARE unscrupulous guys who use women and just drag them along indefinitely. You may not be that kind of guy, but how is she supposed to know that?

`1 Any denial to one side, she should know this much, for she`s been with him long enough to have got to know him by now, surely. It should not even come as a surprise, but it does n`t necessarily follow from there that she`d suffer any the less, or indeed, that she`d allow him to get away with feeling any less guilty. None of this of course being genuine love, not in the strict sense which I deploy the term. Where love is genuine/unconditional, unlike conventional relationships of love, the other person`s desires, needs, and happiness, is always put before your own. Of course, such love as this requires considerable reserves of strength. You have to fight long and hard with your own emotions to arrive here. It is however the most satisfying place to be, for only here can one be genuinely at peace with oneself. One knows in matters of the heart that one can only be equaled, but never by anyone genuinely outperformed.

[TheEvilJester]

You might think that, and from his story we can certainly assume that his intention has never been to just string this new gal along..... But I still maintain that, no matter how much she may think she can trust him, anybody would start to doubt that their partner was being honest about this after enough time has passed without the situation changing. Don't you think every reprehensible guy who is married but has a relationship on the side says the same kind of things? How many married guys have sworn to their mistress that they are not happy with their wife anymore, that the marriage is basically over in their mind already, that a divorce is coming..... all while never REALLY having any intention of divorcing their wife?

I am NOT implying that John is guilty of doing that, because it very much sounds like that is NOT his intention. He sounds like a good guy who just found himself trapped in a bad situation. I'm just saying, after enough time has passed by, how could anybody expect her not to begin to doubt that if nothing ever changes? It is highly unlikely she will be okay forever with not being able to have a full life. At some point, if there is any intention of pursuing a meaningful relationship with her, it needs to include no longer being married to a different woman.

Really, even if she DID 100% trust that he's not just leading her on, eventually she's going to get tired of waiting regardless. Heck, she obviously already is. So, the decision needs to be made whether John wants to end his marriage (which it sounds like he honestly should for his own happiness anyway even if he doesn't end up with this new gal) or to let the new love interest go.

Again, John, we can't make that decision for you, but it sounds to me like that should be a pretty clear decision. You've not been happy for 6 years. That is MUCH longer than you deserve. Don't you deserve even just a chance to be happy again? Take it from a guy who knows. I thought it was my destiny just to be forever trapped in that unhappy, unhealthy relationship. I finally had enough and realized that I deserve a chance to be happy. Honestly, since then my attempts at re-entering the dating world have been unsuccessful and left me believing I will spend the rest of my days alone..... but even in that I am so immeasurably happier being miserable and alone than I was stuck in that terrible relationship.

Good luck. Please care enough about yourself to realize that you deserve a chance to be happy.

[Kates David]

I think that with the passage of time one has, wittingly or not, delved a little deeper than mere word combinations. One may hope, one may need, one may want, one may blame the words, and one may feel ultimately let down, but any denial to one side word combinations are not the last word in knowing somebody. Even body language can give us more than this.
As far as his intention is concerned he may not even be entirely aware of it himself, but he has only been stringing her along should he have been wittingly feeding her false information. This may indeed be the case. If it does n`t work in friendship, even despite every last effort having been put in on his part, there exists no worthwhile relationship to hang on to. I think that much "hanging on" is merely in the name of what we want, rather than any realistic prospect of ever changing things for the better. To get on with somebody in the fuure that is impossible to get on with in the present, environment to one side, requires some fundamental change of character. Most of us neither want nor can do this.